


Strike a Match

by pixelnerd



Category: The Big Bang Theory (TV)
Genre: Dark Past, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-30
Updated: 2015-04-30
Packaged: 2018-03-26 10:58:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3848410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pixelnerd/pseuds/pixelnerd
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>'Don't you ever tame your demons<br/>But always keep 'em on a leash-'</p>
<p>Oneshot. 'Dark' childhood for poor Shelly.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Strike a Match

**Author's Note:**

> I love Hozier. Seriously. I have two songfics for him so far.  
> SO FAR.  
> Anyways, this is based on Hozier’s Arsonist’s Lullaby. Slightly dark childhood. Well, I tried. TBBT is a comedy show after all. (o – o)  
> PS- might be mistakes, I dunno. Microsoft Word isn't exactly reliable.

He learned it from his father. The feeling of a shotgun was so familiar to him, almost like an extension of his body. Soon, he moved onto hunting rifles, and even throwing knives.

It was almost as if they were preparing for war.

To keep him occupied, he’d play with matches. The sound of it striking, the crackling burn, and the brilliance of the flame itself. He couldn’t stop lighting them up, almost like an aesthetical drug.

He had to keep hiding the charred bits and scorched skin from his mother.

If she did find out, he’d hear voices through the walls of his bedroom, father and mother arguing, crying, something about treating them like soldiers.

Then a slap.

After he graduated college (praises of being young for graduating, ‘Only fourteen and in here?’), he came back to Texas, to find his family in a state of chaos. Mother was scared out of her mind. Missy cried nearly every night. George lashed out at everything near him. Now father was playing with gasoline. To burn photos, documents, anything really.

Now he had to worry about smelling like lighter fluid and masked it with heavy cologne.

Sometimes it was so strong he actually thought it was the gasoline itself.

He couldn’t go to a gas station without flinching at the smell. He swore to not drive a car if it meant having to go to that wretched place.

He went back at practicing how to shoot. His aim was perfect, and many congratulations from his father followed. He said that he could become a great marksman in town, but that wasn’t what he wanted.

There would only be a sigh of disappointment coming from him then.

He was grateful for leaving when he finally turned eighteen. Mother would check up on him every once in a while, and kept urging him to marry a girl. She said she was getting old and wanted grandchildren from him already.

He knew she was really afraid that she might’ve had a shorter lifespan from domestic violence.

Now, here he was, in love. Instead of heavy musk he wore talcum. He was an absolute safety freak and especially afraid of fire. But his broken family haunted him. His friends would never find out what he really was. Demons in his closet. Haunting images of a fake smile in family photos, only to be a mask to the true man that his father was, the monster which he vowed never to turn to. All those photos were shoved into the corner in the dark space.

It was accompanied by a shotgun and an empty matchbox.


End file.
